Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's chances of changing the 62-year-old UN Refugee Convention to suit his new-look asylum seeker policy are slim to none, according to an international policy expert.

The asylum seeker issue is next on the hit list as Mr Rudd clears the decks before announcing the federal election date.

The ABC understands the UN's High Commissioner for Refugees has been involved in talks with the Government as Mr Rudd prepares to announce the policy overhaul in the coming days.

Mr Rudd has already flagged potential changes to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, which was set up in the wake of World War II.

Mr Rudd points to a three-pronged approach to tackle the asylum seeker issue, which would include global action, regional action, and action at home.

As part of this global action, Mr Rudd has the UN convention in his sights.

Kevin Rudd on 'international crusade'

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has written off this approach as a "red herring" that does not address the problem.

"We should get cracking on doing what we need to in this country and on our borders to fix this problem, not raise yet another red herring which is Mr Rudd leading some kind of an international crusade to change an international rule," he said.

Professor William Maley, director of the Asia Pacific College of Diplomacy at the Australian National University, says Mr Rudd has very limited scope to change the text of the document.

In fact, changes by the Federal Government would be seen as radical, with such a move never having been made in the convention's history.

What is the UN Refugee Convention?

A legal document defining who is a refugee, their rights and the legal obligations of states who are signatories.

The 1951 document related to WWII refugees in Europe.

In 1967 a protocol was added to give the document universal scope.

Key principles:

It is not illegal for people to seek asylum and doing so may require people to breach immigration rules.

A refugee must not be returned against their will to a territory where they fear threats to life or freedom.

The convention is to be applied without discrimination to race, sex, religion, or country of origin.

The convention lays down basic minimum standards for the treatment of refugees, including access to courts, primary education and work.

In 1967 the convention was broadened to apply to refugees from all over the world, not just Europe, but the Government is likely to do the opposite and tighten the way the document is applied.

Professor Maley says the Government is likely to put in a request for a revision of the convention directly to UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon.

This will then have to be approved by the entire UN General Assembly.

"That would simply be the starting point in a very long process, the end point of which is unlikely to be one which would work to the favour of developed countries," Professor Maley said.

Australian request to UN unlikely to go down well

Considering most countries at the UN General Assembly are relatively poor developing nations that already take the bulk of the world's refugees, such a request from Australia is unlikely to go down well.

"It's most unlikely that they would look favourably at all to complaints from rich developed countries like Australia that they should be expected to do less," Professor Maley said.

"The developed countries would get an unsympathetic hearing in the General Assembly and so I don't think we're likely to see much movement in that particular direction."

Professor Maley says in contrast to what Australia wants to do, most talk about changing the UN convention is usually focused on increasing protections for refugees.

"The convention actually provides limited protections and so most people who've been talking about amending it have been contemplating whether it should embrace a wider range of suffering people than a narrower range," he said.

And any chances of Mr Rudd making a return to the UN General Assembly to discuss the convention are unlikely any time soon.

"The agenda for the next session is pretty firmly in place," Professor Maley said.

Ultimately, Professor Maley says there will probably just be "abstract discussion" about the relevance of the convention.

He says the Government could also try making an "interpretive declaration" about what it thinks certain parts of the UN convention mean.

But Professor Maley says this would not be legally binding and so the effects of such a move would be limited.